The Water from Rock Podcast

Do you have an I don't understand file? What I mean is do you have that place in your mind where you file things you do not understand? Things like, “Why doesn't God do something about this pandemic?” “Why did I get laid off from work or why did my son die from cancer?“ Actually, I have a growing I don't understand file. Things that I've learned to, well, to leave with God as I've come to realize...

She loves me, she loves me not. Did you ever play that game? They say it's actually quite an old game where you take a flower and you begin to pick off the pedals one by one, and with each pedal you pick off, you say, he loves me, he loves me not. Or, she loves me, she loves me not. And you keep on picking off the pedals until you come to that last pedal and that's supposed to tell you... He loves...

It's been said that there was a little difference in people, but that little difference can make a very big difference. I'm going to talk for a few moments about a man who was a little different than those around him, but that little difference made a big difference for him for his people, and it can for you and me too. Download a transcript for the April 29, 2023 Selah episode **This transcript w...

This morning as I was making coffee, I thought of the instant coffee theory of life that's put forward by Rabbi Harold Kushner. And with the instant coffee theory of life, you open a new jar of instant coffee and you dole out generous heaping spoon fulls because, well, you have a whole jar of it, but then by the time you start getting towards the bottom of the jar, you realize that that you don't...

Theologian Ray Anderson suggests that on the day after the father throws that big homecoming party for his prodigal son, that on the day after the prodigal son returns to the far country, but that he returns in order to tell everyone how he had lied about his father; to tell everyone in truth how extravagantly loving his father is. To tell everyone how his father forgives, rejoices and celebrates...

Do you ever have those moments? Well, when you just know you need to forgive someone, but you can't find it in you to forget, or you have a moment to you since God calling you to do something and you don't wanna do it, or you're wanting to obey God, but you don't know if you can... Well, if you ever have moments like that, I've got good news for you. It's a scripture verse that many have found hel...

I have some good news for you. Good news for you, as you seek to be in the world but not of the world. Good news for you is you try to navigate the craziness of a post-Christian world without being harmed, without being corrupted by the world. Some Christians choose to withdraw, to drop out from the world. While other Christians choose to compromise with the world. Download a transcript for the Ap...

I wonder if you ever have days, ever have nights when you feel like Atlas. Like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. If you're feeling that weight today as you're doing ministry, and if you're feeling that weight as a parent trying to provide and hold your family together in a time of pandemic. Maybe you're feeling that weight as a worker, just trying to keep your head above...

Imagine sitting with a close friend for an hour or so and looking back at your life, talking about some of the highs, the lows, some good days, some perhaps not so good, but looking back on your life, I just bet that you would have some lessons learned. Some real distilled wisdom... Download a transcript for the April 15, 2023 Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligenc...

Isn't it fascinating how a God made the human eye so that when we enter darkness the eye dilates the eye gets bigger to let in more light? Now, as I look at scripture, I see something similar happening that when God's people enter a dark time, the eyes of the heart, dilate, they get bigger to let in more like much of the Bible was written by someone going through a dark time, to someone going thro...

Question: what do you like to call Jesus? How do you like to address Jesus when you pray? You call Jesus Lord. Savior, master, mighty God? Well, I'm gonna talk today about calling Jesus and knowing Jesus as brother. As our brother. And this all has to do with what happened on Good Friday and Easter, that Jesus, through His death and resurrection, he becomes our brother.  Download a transcript for...

Today is Holy Saturday. I know that Hallmark does not make greeting cards for Holy Saturday, and that Holy Saturday is not on most people's calendars, but it is the wisdom of Christians through the centuries to mark this day and to call this day holy as a day to pause, to pay attention, and to wait for what God is going to do. Why just imagine yourself on that first Holy Saturday... Download a tra...

Have you seen that beautiful Passover moon looking down on us the past few nights? What that Passover Moon is telling us is that this is Holy Week. We are in those wondrous and holy days in which we follow our Lord Jesus from His triumphal entry, through the agony of the cross, to the glory of His resurrection. And I don't want to let these days just slip by us without stopping to think about the...

Every preacher that I've ever known put in some long hours during Holy Week, burns some midnight oil, as we're wanting to communicate to make clear the meaning of Good Friday and Easter. And then on top of that, how do you go about explaining the meaning of these days to children who, well, they might be thinking about Easter eggs and Cadbury chocolate bunnies? How do we explain the wonder, the gl...

I have a question for you. How do you and I, as believers in Jesus Christ, how do we not just survive, but how do we actually thrive in what are some admittedly difficult days for our country? What does God's word have to say to us about actually being blessed? About leading fruitful lives in a time of uncertainty and upheaval?   Download a transcript for the April 1, 2023 Selah episode **This tra...

One does not know who he is until one knows whose he is.” That's what a missionary statesman, E. Stanley Jones said, “one does not know who he is until one knows whose he is.” And I wonder about you today. Do you know whose you are? Do you know to whom your life belongs? Do you know from whom your life came and to whom your life will one day return? Today, I want us to see that you and I that we b...

"God has forgotten me." Those were her exact words. "God has forgotten me." So I pulled up a chair and sat by her hospital bed as the patient poured forth her pain and despair. "God has forgotten me," she said in many tears and suffering. As a pastor and Chaplain, I've heard those words or words like them many times. And truth be told, I've thought and said those words myself. God has forgotten me...

It's two o'clock at night. You can't sleep, you toss and turn the night seems so dark and you're calling out to Jesus. Where do you imagine Jesus to be at two o'clock on a dark night? Are you wait nervously in the doctor's office, wringing your hands fearful about what the test results are going to show? And you're calling out to Jesus. Where do you imagine Jesus to be? When you think of Jesus, do...

I wanna read a verse of scripture and then tell a story, and it all has to do with how God sees you as a follower of Jesus. First the scripture, Colossians 1:22. Christ has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy, blameless and irreproachable before him. And that's how God looks at you as a follower of Jesus. Christ has reconciled you to God. Download a tran...

How is your heart today? Is your heart at peace? Or how about your conscience? Are you plagued by nagging, guilty conscience, are you frequently bothered that you don't do enough for God, that you don't do enough for others, do you feel that you're not measuring up to being a good Christian? Or do you sometimes even wonder if you are a Christian? Well, I have some encouraging words for you from th...

Recently, a wise friend reminded me, Tim, what we're facing in our country right now and in our lives, it's really a spiritual battle, because we are at a struggle against unseen forces of spiritual darkness. Now, as soon as my friend said that, I knew she was right. What we're facing today is what the Apostle Paul calls a struggle, not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against spiritual for...

People say that you got to have self-confidence... That it's all about self-confidence. That if you don't have self-confidence that you're going to be insecure, that you're going to stumble through life and fail. And so when I was a teenager, I wanted self-confidence, and so I read books and magazines on how to build my self-confidence... Well, it took some time, but over the years, I found someth...

Do you ever have mornings when your alarm goes off and you start thinking about some prickly people you're gonna have to deal with that day, or you think about problems that you're going to face? Or you just wanna curl up and go back to sleep? Or do ever have a night in the middle of the night, kind of night, so you toss and turn, you fret and worry, just wishing you had some kind of special power...

Home. Can you think of a more wonderful, more lovely word than home? The longing for home is deep, and most of us, that safe place where we can go just as we are, and they take a sin where we can kick off our shoes and relax and simply be who we are. We remember Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who says, There's no place like home. And with those words and three clicks of her heels, Dorothy is back hom...

Hey, could you just give it to me quick? I hear that a lot these days, people on the go want a quick answer, they want in 140 characters or less just... Spare me the details. Tell me quick what counts. What counts in being a Christian? Do you ever wonder about that? But what does count? And being a Christian. When you boil it all down, after all the sermons you've heard, all the books you've read,...